U.S. Supreme Court Declines to Reconsider Same-Sex Marriage Ruling

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FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Monday, November 10, 2025

Little Rock, Ark.— On Monday, Family Council expressed disappointment after the U.S. Supreme Court declined to review a case challenging its 2015 Obergefell v. Hodges ruling on same-sex marriage. Family Council President Jerry Cox said the Court missed an important opportunity to correct what many continue to view as an overreach of judicial authority.

“Obergefell was a poorly reasoned decision from the moment it was handed down,” Cox said. “The Constitution does not give the federal government the power to redefine marriage. That authority rests with the states and with the people. By refusing to take this case, the Court has chosen to leave in place a ruling that short-circuited the democratic process.”

Cox said the Obergefell decision is about a lot more than just same-sex marriage. “The bigger question has always been about how marriage will be defined in America and who gets to write that definition. From 2004 to 2015, voters in more than three-fifths of the country democratically passed laws and amendments defining marriage in their respective states. In most cases, those measures defined marriage as the union of one man and one woman. Voters in three states chose to define marriage differently. The court’s Obergefell decision struck down every one of those state marriage laws.”

Cox noted that despite the Court’s refusal to hear the case, the debate over marriage is far from settled. “Millions of Americans still believe that marriage is the union of one man and one woman, and that belief is rooted not only in religious conviction but in thousands of years of human history. The Court may choose not to review Obergefell today, but the conversation about marriage and family will continue. We remain committed to defending the freedom of people who hold to the traditional understanding of marriage.”

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Will the U.S. Supreme Court Revisit Same-Sex Marriage?

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News outlets report the U.S. Supreme Court may review the 2015 Obergefell v. Hodges decision that overturned state marriage laws and instituted same-sex marriage nationwide.

Kentucky county clerk Kim Davis — who has been taken to court for declining to issue same-sex marriage licenses — is appealing to the U.S. Supreme Court. She is also challenging the essence of the Obergefell ruling.

ABC News reports:

She [Kim Davis] claims the high court’s decision in Obergefell — extending marriage rights for same-sex couples under the 14th Amendment’s due process protections — was “egregiously wrong.”

“The mistake must be corrected,” wrote Davis’ attorney Mathew Staver in the petition. He calls Justice Anthony Kennedy’s majority opinion in Obergefell “legal fiction.”

The petition appears to mark the first time since 2015 that the court has been formally asked to overturn the landmark marriage decision. Davis is seen as one of the only Americans currently with legal standing to bring a challenge to the precedent.

Back in 2015, we said that Obergefell was about a lot more than just same-sex marriage. The bigger question has always been about how marriage will be defined in America and who gets to write that definition. From 2004 to 2015, voters in more than three-fifths of the country democratically passed laws and amendments defining marriage in their respective states. In most cases, those measures defined marriage as the union of one man and one woman. Voters in three states chose to define marriage differently. The court’s Obergefell decision struck down every one of those state marriage laws.

In 2020, U.S. Supreme Court Justices Clarence Thomas and Samuel Alito made blunt statements that Obergefell has had “ruinous consequences for religious liberty,” saying it lets courts and governments label people who believe in traditional marriage “as bigots, making their religious liberty concerns that much easier to dismiss.”

Support for same-sex marriage has actually declined in recent years. Reversing the U.S. Supreme Court’s Obergefell decision may not seem likely right now, but the same thing seemed true of Roe v. Wade 50 years ago.

The reality is Obergefell was a deeply flawed decision in 2015. It’s still a deeply flawed decision today. And as Justices Thomas and Alito said in 2020, “the Court has created a problem that only it can fix.”

Articles appearing on this website are written with the aid of Family Council’s researchers and writers.

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Southern Baptist Convention Affirms Biblical Views on Marriage, Gender-Identity

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The Associated Press reports the Southern Baptist Convention passed a resolution affirming marriage as the union of one man and one woman and opposing transgender ideology during its annual meeting in Dallas on Tuesday.

The convention also hosted a conversation with Tennessee’s attorney general and with an Alliance Defending Freedom attorney regarding laws that protect children from sex-change procedures.

This month marks ten years since the U.S. Supreme Court issued its Obergefell v. Hodges decision that struck down state marriage laws nationwide.

From 2004 to 2015, voters in more than three-fifths of the country democratically passed laws and amendments defining marriage in their respective states. In most cases, those measures defined marriage as the union of one man and one woman. The Obergefell ruling nullified all of those state laws.

The Southern Baptist Convention’s resolution affirms biblical marriage as the union of one man and one woman, and it calls for the reversal of the supreme court’s bad Obergefell ruling. It also opposes the normalization of transgender ideology.

Some member of the media have seemed surprised the Sothern Baptist Convention would approve a resolution like this, but there really should not be anything shocking about a Christian denomination holding Christian beliefs on marriage and gender-identity.

In 2004, the SBC approved a pro-marriage resolution saying, “The union of one man and one woman is the only form of marriage prescribed in the Bible as God’s perfect design for the family.” That resolution also called for passage of a federal marriage amendment defining marriage in America as the union of one man and one woman.

In 2014, the convention approved a resolution affirming “God’s good design that gender identity is determined by biological sex and not by one’s self-perception.”

In light of that, the SBC’s latest resolution isn’t exactly new.

Support for same-sex marriage has actually declined in recent years, and about half the states —including Arkansas — have passed laws protecting children from sex-change procedures. Many of the world’s leading health experts have found these procedures are dangerous. Americans have also expressed widespread backlash against corporations that pander to pro-LGBT groups.

Reversing the U.S. Supreme Court’s Obergefell decision does not seem likely right now, but the same thing seemed true of Roe v. Wade 50 years ago. We appreciate the Southern Baptist Convention maintaining its biblical convictions regarding marriage and gender-identity.

Articles appearing on this website are written with the aid of Family Council’s researchers and writers.

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